Beach Two!

I didn't take a ton of photos at the beach so this is heavily supplemented by Mike who I can't talk into writing a post. Which is too bad! What is NOT too bad?? Check out Autumn's hand position on that noodle. It's the same hand position as the one I've been teaching her with a bokken and a jo. SHE'S BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.

This is how Mike utilized the noodles. That's a happy camper.

I spent the first few days trying to talk Mike into parasailing. I thought it'd be something fun and different and Autumn might like it. However, Mike thought it might be better to ease her into the crazy stuff with jet-skiing so off we went! Autumn was a little nervous but as we waited, she got excited. The water was pretty calm that day so they let us all go on one jet ski which is good because Autumn stayed sandwiched between us. We had a whole hour and it was a blast! Autumn spent the rest of the trip begging to go again and we had to break it to her that it's probably a once a year deal.

Here's what she thought about that. Hahaha, no. This is Autumn attempting to nap on the beach. She wasn't a fan but it was our last day so I thought she should take advantage of the time.

This is the first year that crabs didn't absolutely freak Autumn out. One night we took lanterns out and watched the little crabs scuttle about. I meant to bring our telescope but we had to settle for stargazing.

Back to non-beach pictures, this is Autumn playing horse shoes with her new friend. Mike got this fun shot. It looks like when she throws a frisbee.

Here we are attempting a selfie on the way to the fireworks. Not too bad!

I really liked this. Mike took a picture of us taking pictures. This is everyone who was at the beach, except for Mike. Also, check out how long Autumn's legs have gotten!

Aaaaaand the infamous ferris wheel. If you are on Facebook, you heard that I didn't like it. At all. I was very nervous and nauseated. I like roller coasters. I like jet skis. I like go karts. I don't like ferris wheels. I'll probably end up trying another one, though, because I'm that optimistic that next time it'll be different.

Here are Mike and Autumn being neither worried nor nauseated. Sigh.

Vacation Pics!

I'm just going to lead off with this because it's hilarious!

We were at the beach last week. By ourselves Friday night through Wednesday afternoon but Wednesday night, Tyler, Hudson, PD, Lainey, and part of the Denny family joined us! We had a great time. At least a couple of blog posts worth! Back to the photo, Autumn wasn't angry or crazy (craziER than usual, at least)...I caught her mid-yawn. When I was scrolling through the photos, I laughed so hard that everyone wanted to see the photo, including Hudson who then had to reenact the yawn.

I figure this post I'll go with mostly non-beachy photos, although I do have a couple of super short but funny videos for the end. I need to get pictures from Mike because he got some great ones. I might even see if he'll do a post! Speaking of Mike, here he is helping Autumn with her summer math. I got this math skills book for students between first and second grade. Mike and I are terrible at math so we're trying to help Autumn not become us!

Lainey and PD got a sofa this trip! It was a resounding success with Autumn. She found niches for her friends...

And got in a few acrobatics. She taught Tyler how to do an aikido front roll to an upside down position last week so...sorry, Leah and Ryan.

We don't have cable so Autumn only gets to watch Octonauts (which is great--Mike and I decided it's steampunk for kids) and Doc McStuffins at the beach or at someone's house. Access to Doc McStuffins has set Autumn on a major doctoring of animals run. On the way to dinner, Kiri got a full checkup, including her blood pressure. Ah, I just remembered that Mike has a fantastic picture of Tyler and Autumn doctoring the animals together!

She and Tyler also did a ton of Booboos Be Gone pictures. This is one of Autumn's. We need to have an apostrophe conversation, it seems.

We finally went to the snow cone stand which was very much like a beach-side Jerry's. Someone liked hers quite a bit. She also made a bunch of little friends! They all hung out and played horse shoes together. Autumn was quite the socialite last week. She made a friend at the ice cream shop, too.

Oh, haha, this one should have been at the top. I tried to get a picture of these monkeys smiling. Not a single on with all of them looking at me or with all of them making a picture face. But the silly photo? Perfect.

Hey, look at us! It's actually a great photo of all three of us!! This was at the fireworks which I'm going to post about at Passing Pinwheels. Mainly because I went on a ferris wheel AND IT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE. Roller coaster? Yes. Ferris Wheels? NOPE.

Teehee. This is how Lainey and Mrs. Donna rode to the fireworks.

Ok, two seriously short videos and we're done. The first couple of days, the waves were too fun! Not the biggest but still nice to play in. And it was so warm that I got in with no drama. I do not like cold water.


Later, after Tyler got in town, he and Autumn had the best time doing all kinds of crazy stuff together. The one that made me laugh so hard was what I'm calling sand surfing. They'd get on the little boards and let the waves take them to and fro while they giggled like maniacs. At the beginning of the video, you'll hear Mike talking about the chillest crab in the world. It washed up by Hudson and just froze. It let us pet it and everything. Mike finally helped it back into the water. Another one came up later and tried to take us out so I'm guessing it was the same crab out for revenge. He was thwarted when PD put some sand on him and Mr. Crab decided just to sit in the sand a while. ANYWAY, Tyler and Autumn get going pretty well at the end of this one.


All that fun ended in great naps! We'll wrap it up with some hard sleepin'!

Hi, all! I am OFF this week!! No classes so I am also taking tonight off of blogging. If you happen to stop in and want your Autumn fix, visit Passing Pinwheels and check out the latest birthday post!

Summertime, FINALLY

Can you believe that it's June 23 and I am FINALLY done blogging the month of May? Seriously, that it exactly why we had Autumn's birthday party in June! Speaking of, Part 1 of her Frozen party is over at Passing Pinwheels! Part 2 should be up tomorrow. The summer has been pretty good so far! Not too stressful which is good. Autumn is going to camp a couple days a week and that's fun. On non camp days, she gets a bit in the morning to chill and be lazy. Like this:

That bag next to her is Autumn's swim bag. She's doing swim lessons with my friend Christy since the level 4 and 5 Red Cross swim lessons are at times that we can't make it. I'm also taking her once a week or so to swim a few laps and then play a bit at the gym pool. I'm not sure if we're going to do the swim team again this year but we'll see! She loves to swim, though, so swim team or not we're really working with her this summer.

The beginning of June was crazy wet. We've been able to play in rain and puddles and even entertain ourselves with drops while waiting to get into a restaurant! We don't go out very often and I can't for the life of me remember why we were eating out that night but there must have been some reason.

We have the sad news that Kyle and Lindsay are having to move out of the house across the street. We're all super sad. They even tried to put an offer on the house but the owner wasn't interested. The neighborhood is lamenting big time! I'm so sad that we won't be able to just tap on the door and do this kind of thing. Have I used the word sad enough in this paragraph?

My aikido classes are ongoing throughout the summer (YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO COME) so we're still at it! How cute are these guys? We did a jo day and they did a fantastic job. Summer is either feast or famine in all my classes--everyone or hardly anyone depending on travel. This one was pretty small but it worked out because they are all roughly the same age and skill level so class when quite well.

We did have a sad (there's that word again...) Saturday night/Sunday morning. Autumn forgot that she had pizza on Friday and had ice cream on Saturday which is a recipe for sad tummy times. I didn't know because she went to eat without us so I was surprised when she ran into our room at about 4am, saying her tummy hurt. She climbed in and I tried to calm her down. She had her head on my shoulder and she's not much of a snuggler these days so it was kind of nice. BUT. Thank goodness Mike got the barf bucket because right as I was falling back to sleep, she sat up and said, "I AM GOING TO THROW UP" and immediately did so into the bucket. CLOSE CALL. She settled down a after hanging out in our bathroom for a while and we made her a pallet on the floor (because she likes to sleep like a starfish and also because puke). Note the ponytail for better puking access. She made it about 2 hours before it all started over again. So sad! But, by 10am, all was well again!

While all this was happening, this is pretty much how Molly took it. She's like, whatever, I puke alllllll the time and you don't see me being dramatic. Full disclosure, I didn't take this photo that day. She was doing some wildlife watching sometime this month.

Kind of funny thing about Molly. A friend gave us a cat bed that her cat turned her nose up at. Molly didn't even acknowledge it after burying her face in it a time or two to smell. What does she lay on instead? Blocks and shoes. Cats are weird.

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far! May you have occasional times when you are as comfy as a kitty.

Spring Showcase Time AND MORE

I forgot to post a couple of really cute beach pictures last week. LOOK AT THESE FACES.

We added Mr. Hudson and after many takes, I got one with all four looking sort of at me! Ha! Fun times with cousins.

And, one more, look at how incredibly happy this cat is to see her loving family. SO HAPPY.

Anyway, Autumn had her Spring Showcase and, as always, it was a great production. Autumn was only in the ballet portion and they did the Little Mermaid. Because she's one day a week, she was only in one dance. I really wish I could get her to do lyrical or jazz, though, because that's my favorite part of the Showcase. Tap is out of the question, though, because she hates the noise.

Before her dress rehearsal, Autumn did some dancing for me and I took about a zillion pictures because she's awesome and hilarious with her drama.

My mom and I are also jealous of her muscles. In a few of these she's looking kinda cut!

Gazing into the distance...

This one, I might have to frame. Too bad about the bag in the photo but I took this running into the program. I don't know why we were running behind but this is exactly why I take pictures before the dress rehearsal.

Afterward, we took our now-traditional photos with Lainey and Pd. I have no idea why I didn't get one with my mom, though. I really thought I did.

I don't usually get a photo of myself but this time I remembered! Check out her crazy dilated eyes.

On the way out, one of Autumn's little friends caught her. They used to be in the same class but Autumn is a little older and she ended up moving up and the friend moved to a younger class. Autumn misses her a lot so I'm glad they got to hang out a little.

I'm not sure what I'll be blogging about here next week BUT sometime this week I'm going to post photos from Autumn's very late birthday party at Passing Pinwheels! We had a special guest and some very happy folks:

Fun Times at the Beach! Mostly...

Oh, man. It's almost mid-June and I am still blogging May!! This is why we waited until June to do Autumn's birthday party. May is just such a crazy month. But fun! Check these guys out chillin' on the beach. Beach bums!

It wasn't all relaxation, though. Autumn loves to swim. Here she is practicing her back stroke in the ocean. Not too shabby! It's enough to alllllmost make me wish we had a pool at the house. Except no. Because I am way too lazy for that.

The littlest Colleys got in on the beach action, too. Hudson played in the sand...

And so did this little miss! It seriously seems like just yesterday we were taking pictures of Autumn in the sand being cute.

I just made the mistake of looking at old photos and now I am all nostalgic and sad because OMG WHAT THE HECK WHEN WAS SHE THIS SMALLLLLLLL. Autumn was only 17 months old here.

Siiiiigh. Well, Ellie took to the ocean more smoothly than Autumn did. Autumn wasn't a fan of the noise for a long time. Look at how cute Ellie and Kyle are here.

That face!!!

And look at these lovely ladies. It's so funny because when people see Autumn with me but they don't see Mike, they think she's my twin. But, I think it's only because they haven't seen her with the Colleys.

Oh, wait. The picture wasn't quite right. BAM! KIRI THE KIWI TIME.

We really had a great weekend at the beach. My only regret is that I didn't get a family photo this time around! Mike's eyelid was either sunburned or bitten so his poor eye swelled nearly shut. He, for obvious reasons, completely shunned the camera. Well, except for this. He crashed at the family reunion because he had to take a benadryl late in the day.

Keep an eye on Passing Pinwheels! I have some fun things coming up about Autumn's birthday and Tamara's wedding. Plus, Friday was, if you can believe it, what would have been Garrett's third birthday. Time flies, doesn't it? Anyway, next week here on Tales from Our Life, it's Autumn's dance recital!